How to start getting sh*t done - 4 steps

Are you ready to make progress and move forward in your life? 

4 steps to getting sh*t done

1. Get out of your own way

Because I guarantee that you’re in it. If not consciously then thanks to your unconscious mind. Did you know that 95% of what you do every day is driven by the unconscious mind? So, if you’ve not taken the time to figure out what’s in there then you’re essentially letting a much younger version of you take the wheel of your life. Which is why things can feel like a car crash. A few things that might be causing problems from the hidden depths of your unconscious mind:

• Negative core beliefs about you, the world and what you’re capable of. E.g. “I’m not worthy of love” causing you to subconsciously pick partners who aren’t emotionally available for relationships. Or “money is hard to get” causing you to miss opportunities to make money easily by assuming that work always requires you to struggle and stress.
• Social conditioning you’ve absorbed from the world around you. E.g. “Getting older is sad and means my life is over” or “Being a single woman means people will look down on me.” All of this can cause you to feel a lot of shame, which will stop you from being yourself and going for what you want in life.
• Cognitive distortions (patterns of negative thinking) E.g. Catastrophising (always focusing on the worst possible outcome), black and white thinking (“it’s either black or it’s white” - actually, there are many other possibilities of grey in between) or believing whatever you feel to be the truth (feelings are not facts).

2. Stop making assumptions

I think every single coaching session I do - at the start of the journey at least - involves me challenging clients on assumptions they are making. Usually, this is an assumption about what someone else - or “other people” - are thinking about, something the client has said or done. Or is about to say or do. 

You will never - ever - be able to tell what someone else is thinking. You are not psychic. Even if you ask them they may not be truthful. And every time you focus your mind on that external place you are wasting energy that could be used to establish what you think. To tap into your inner wisdom and internal validation. Which is way more important than what anyone else thinks. Plus, it’s very rare for us to imagine other people are thinking great, positive things about us - our assumptions are usually negative, judgmental or shaming. If you want to start getting sh*t done then stop torturing yourself with this fiction.

3. Shift your inner voice to self-compassion

Scientific data shows that self-criticism makes us weaker in the face of failure, more emotional, and less likely to assimilate lessons from our failures. It is not motivating or productive and it doesn’t make us able to achieve more. In fact, it acts like a roadblock every time you allow it. One study found that having a self-critical inner voice had the same impact on the nervous system as being physically threatened. So, if you live in a critical inner narrative you are constantly in fear of attack. And the attacker is you!

The science on self-compassion, on the other hand, shows that it makes us more confident (because we can trust ourselves more), able to process failure and be proactive after failure, truly able to bounce back from problems, more motivated, productive and much more emotionally consistent because we aren’t constantly feeling under attack. It also frees up energy that we might otherwise have used on anxiety or self-hatred to focus on areas of life that need momentum and action.

4. Do the “hell no that’s scary” thing

Ok, this is the big one. Because if something feels like a “hell no that’s scary” then you’re probably going to register the discomfort and run in the other direction. Maybe you take the feeling of fear to be a sign you shouldn’t do it (it’s actually just a sign that you’re at the end of your comfort zone). Or maybe you have a complete physical shutdown because something is so intimidating for you. There are ways to make this an easier step to take - I can help you regulate your nervous system, for example, so that you don’t stay in a shutdown state - and doing the scary thing does get easier the more you do it. Especially if you remember that it’s one of the fastest ways to get sh*t done - because the scary thing you’re avoiding is probably the one thing that’s going to get the ball rolling.

From unconscious beliefs to challenging a critical voice and finding the motivation to take action, all of this is part of the resilience coaching process. If you are stuck, low on energy, burned out, uninspired or you just don’t know where to start to get the sh*t done that you want to do this year, resilience coaching is going to light a fire underneath you again.